Pop tops would work as quarters in a lot of pay phones and pay laundry washing machines. If you were really tuned in you would get a "blue box" which was designed by the alias "Captain Crunch" and allowed free long distance calls. People doing this were known as "Phone Preaks". Legend says Captain Crunch got his name by his ability to use a Captain Crunch cereal whistle to trick the ATT long distance system by whistling certain tomes into the phone. This was the kind of stuff techno nerds did before there were PCs and hacking.

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Posted by shutterspeed

MS Gulf Coast

Member since May 2007

63944 posts

Posted on 9/28/15 at 6:24 pm to EA6B

Remember that book circulating around local BBSes in the '80s and '90s. Some of those phone terms you used bring back some serious nostalgia.

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Posted by Napoleon

Kenna

Member since Dec 2007

69469 posts

Posted on 9/28/15 at 6:30 pm to EA6B

Wasn't Captain Crunch, Steve Wosniak? Or maybe Woz just refrenced him in an interview. I don't know, but I know I heard those exact words you posted in a Wozniack interview.

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Posted by jennBN

Member since Jun 2010

3151 posts

Posted on 9/28/15 at 10:10 pm to EA6B

I had a black box (that's what we called it) it was a mini tape that a friend made possibly from a Commodore 64? It replicated the tones of quarters on ma bell phones. If you picked the phone up and blew into the receiver and heard it in the ear piece it would work. You played the tape, dialed a number, hung up before anyone answered and it would "return" all of your quarters. So the tone replicated maybe 4 bucks and the phone would empty its change.....this was back when salt water in dollar bill slots on Coke machines supposedly did the same.

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